


Rebirth

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, oh good they made that one tag finally, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 15:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: A nameless man opens his eyes and looks.





	Rebirth

**** A nameless man stood at a grave and contemplated. The names on it were nearly rubbed off by time and neglect, and blood was spilt on it from  _ that boy _ , staining part of the stone a faded rust. He rubbed at it idly and wondered at the difference of a cup of blood.

* * *

It was a slow realisation, after the ritual. A sense that something was off, tilted just a few degrees to the left. He’d spent days paranoid, obsessively checking things and terrifying Death Eaters until he realised-

The haze that had descended over his mind at some point in the past years was gone. His thoughts were clear, untouched by… violence, impulse. He punished his followers for punishment, not entertainment, sent away the wretch in place of torturing Pettigrew when he was being a little shit.

He spent hours trying to figure out  _ why _ until the revelation that he’d recently introduced foreign blood and magic to his system occurred to him. Something that large would affect anyone, especially someone with…

With only 1/64 of a soul. When had he deemed that wise? The third? Fourth?

Unacceptable.

* * *

When he had graduated Hogwarts, Tom Riddle had the vision of a magical world that didn’t shun those from the muggle world, that took care of its children instead of letting them rot in orphanages. Of a world that didn’t cater to the powerless and let them erase their traditions.

Somewhere along the line, Tom Riddle had warped, decided only certain magic was good magic, only certain blood was  _ good  _ blood. A nameless man wondered when he began spouting the rhetoric of the Light.

* * *

A nameless man looked out at his followers and contemplated. Of those there, many wouldn’t look at him, stared at the wall behind or his feet, cowering. Those who did had manic grins, unfocused eyes, the glimmer of insanity behind them.

Certainly not anyone that an outsider would listen to.

He tapped his wand and watched them flinch, and wondered at the difference between fear and admiration.

* * *

One day, he looked at Nagini and remembered he’d made her a horcrux at some point, and tried to remember why. What his reasoning was, at tainting her- because a horcrux was always tainted, a shadow of what it formerly was.

He didn’t know who he killed for her. Couldn’t remember, didn’t know if the memory even registered enough for him to try. He regretted that he did it. Wished violently he never had, but he doesn’t regret the death. Only regretted that he had done this to her.

* * *

In the end, he looked out at his followers, looked at himself, looked at the expectations he had created and the cliff he had jumped from. The nameless man looked at the spectre of Voldemort, at his original visions for this world, and went,  _ This is not what I want. _

But how to repair it?

He looked at his paper-thin skin and thought of his moorless identity and went,  _ There’s a start. _

Severus was tense, stiff when he told the man to look into appearance-changing potions. He needed to be able to mould his whole body, with how frail this homunculus was, and that meant spells upon potions upon regimens.

Lucius was terrified and hiding it badly when he told the man to gather the names of his followers and allies. He needed to know who was behind his name, and just who would stand with him once he completely destroyed it.

He needed to be more than what he had created.

* * *

Names were-

Complicated, heinous, always a contentious point with him. The one his mother had gifted him was disgusting, a mixture of pathetic wretch of a pureblood and loathsome muggle victim. The one he had created was stained with insanity and blood, one that would never be associated with change, with victory.

He needed something completely new.

Wizard tradition was to pull from constellations, old Anglo-Saxon names, but he didn’t want to become some name that blended into the dozens of purebloods, have a name that half the magical world would look at and go  _ Ah, another inbred fool. _

Salazar Slytherin was from the north of Spain, hailing from a noble family that eventually died out. Maybe there was something there that would be fitting.

* * *

The wizarding world as a whole denied that he had come back. It was useful while he continued to plan.

The list that Lucius gave him was… frustrating, would be a good word. The Death Eaters had fled seeing his face after he read it. By and large, his followers were composed of 2nd- and back generation purebloods, ones that hadn’t had a halfblood in either sense in decades, but  enough Squibs to fill a house. Those that weren’t purebloods were offhand magical beings, dark magic practitioners, or ambitious politicians. Not ones the public would look at and trust a revolution to. Especially not ones like Bellatrix, maddened and thirsting for blood.

He traced names and planned and pruned, deciding who was vital, useless, detrimental. When he had determined who he would keep, who would be sacrificed to the mob, and who would  _ disappear _ , that is when he began to call meetings with his “most trusted followers”.

Those he left were smart enough not to mention the Lestranges, Pettigrew, Greyback disappearing. The fact they remained was enough for them.

* * *

He dangled the ring in front of his face, turned it over and over in his hands. He’d killed his father for this piece, shard of him to splinter away. How much difference could ¼ a sould make, he thought? How much did it debase someone, remove them from their sanity?

How much had he ruined himself with this one act? The diary, he could excuse, desperation made manifest, but after, what was the gain? Splitting his soul further and further-

Foolishness, it was. It made him regret hunting down his father, looking for that one link to his past he didn’t know, bothering with the man. Some foolish muggle his mother had used hadn’t deserved the brunt of his anger- no, that was to Merope Gaunt, sentencing him to life with muggles, to Albus Dumbledore, ignoring his please, to the Wizarding World, allowing itself to rot.

He regretted killing Marvolo Gaunt with as much emotion he had at this point, for what it had done and what it signified, and nearly screamed as something flowed back into him, latched onto him,  _ reformed. _

* * *

“Severuss… How would you say the world viewss me?”

The Potions Master paused in his brewing, eyes trained on his potion. He didn’t begrudge the man, paitently waiting for an answer. It was muggy in the lab, this last round of potions making the air humid, no doubt because of the amount of heat needed to brew them.

“They fear you, my lord,” Severus finally replied, continuing to stir. He hummed at that, hand drifting up to cup his chin.

“Would you say that is a good thing?” The pause this time was more strained, Severus’ calm transferring to something artificial, and he sighed, frustrated, because what had that former him been thinking, making those supposed to be loyal to him  _ terrified? _

“As I ssee it, Severuss, this fear hass pushed away people from our effortsss. They will not listen if it means following ssomeone they are terrified of. It hass even pushed you away, after all, and you were one of my most loyal, once upon a time.” That artifical calm dropped, replaced by resignation and fear, and he shook his head. “I do not blame you, Severuss. A good leader is not one that only inspires fear.”

“...Of course, my lord.” A timer went off, and carefully, stiltedly, Severus walked away from his cauldron to check on the simmering of the other ingredients. “What will you do then, my lord?”

He hummed. “Change that, of course.”

* * *

He emerged from the bath aching, joints creaking and skin burning as he stood. The new layer was thick, less a fault covering and more a dermis, epidermis, the components of a human. He was starting to look more and more as a human, instead of a monstrosity.

He looked in the mirror at the smoothness to his face and growing rise to his nose. It was a face he had not seen in years, decades, was foreign to him. Nagini slithered in from the bedroom and hissed in displeasure, saying he had looked more becoming before. He answered that he wasn’t trying to appeal to snakes, as much as he preferred them.

* * *

The Ministry set a mole in Hogwarts, according to his followers’ children. The Malfoy heir describes her as garish and loud, but no more troublesome than a gnat. The Potter boy was also telling anyone he could of Voldemort’s return, despite the inevitable lashback thanks to the Daily Prophet. Not many believed him, and more that a good few were antagonistic.

It served his purposes well. He prepared, moulded his body more and more, dipped into Lucius’ and Nicola’s circles as an up-and-coming heir from an thought-dead family, because he despised what it had become but the Gaunts were known, “ _ Pure” _ . What he spoke of pleased them, despite the vagueness about it. Separation from the muggle world, though no mention of whether that meant muggleborns and halfbloods. Return to the old traditions, though no word on if that included muggle-hunting and inbreeding.

It was easy to convince them to support his ventures onto the political scene.

* * *

The Potter boy was connected to him in some way, he knew. There were times where he could feel a presence watching, sense someone listening in to his thoughts, and occasionally, he would go to sleep and dream of homework, tiptoeing around a uneasy castle, instructing on how it was  _ this hand movement, less wave to your wrist _ .

He thought for a singular moment that maybe it was because of the supposed prophecy, the bits and pieces of “power he knows not”. But no, it couldn’t be, could it? He had an inkling he knew what that power was, and it was not clairovoyance. 

Which left something far more contentious. He grit his teeth as he looked at a picture of Potter from an old paper, scar barely visible through his bangs. Seven, then. Five, now that his diary and ring were gone. No wonder he’d fallen so quickly.

* * *

Fudge was sweating under the lights, proclaiming he would be going up for re-election, and he smirked to himself and laughed with his associates, watching the fool sweat. With how the future looked, the man wouldn’t last long. The Slytherins had been kicking up a fuss over his plant, and evidence had “come out” about dark artifacts in her possession. The man wouldn’t have anyone looking at him with anything close to respect once this was all over.

With the familiar incompetence gone, the public would falter, look for someone to turn to in such an  _ uncertain  _ time.

Asier Gaunt would be the one that stepped out of the woodwork, provided security and championed new ideals, lead them into the new world.

**Author's Note:**

> ....eh?  
>  thelennystorm.tumblr.com


End file.
